Dogs Bark, but the Caravan Rolls On: Observations Then and Now [Hardcover]

Dogs Bark, but the Caravan Rolls On: Observations Then and Now, Frank Conroy's first nonfiction work since his acclaimed memoir Stop-Time, contains thoughtful pieces on jazz, writing, his father, and fathering. In addition to directing the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Conroy is a jazz pianist of some skill, as he proudly notes in this collection, taken primarily from articles published in Esquire and GQ. Profiles of Keith Jarrett, Wynton Marsalis, and the Rolling Stones are complemented by pieces about Conroy's own musical background, including a wonderful story of the Harlem club where Conroy became a regular, and of playing piano at a club without his bass player, who was late, only to have Charles Mingus arise from dinner and sit in.

On writing, there are some useful pieces regarding the process itself, particularly in "The Writers' Workshop." Conroy is direct and engaging, and he humbly discusses his childhood truancy, his flawed writings, and his family life. While some writers mythologize or sepia-coat their lives, Conroy tells it like it is, or was, but with careful thought and personal meaning to which readers can relate. As Conroy humbly jams with Marsalis, he confesses: "I feel like a child who has the skills to ride a pony but has been mistakenly mounted on Man o' War." After his first experience with Mingus, the great bassist said, "'You are ... an authentic primitive. That is true.' He leaned forward and lowered his voice. 'But you swing.'" Conroy's writings swing, too, and Dogs Bark, but the Caravan Rolls On has something for everyone, especially writers and jazz enthusiasts. --Michael Ferch

Conroy (Body & Soul) delivers a running commentary on life in this collection of articles and essays, at once subtle and dazzling, written over the past 25 years. His observations range from warmly intimate (ruminations on sex and love, shooting pool as a kid) to anonymously civic (the meaning and vitality of smalltown America). In the first half of the book, he grapples with the memory of his remote father, embraces fatherhood himself and peruses the mysteries of life especially those he finds in reading ("escape") and writing ("experiment"), and even riffs on his position as chair of the famed Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. The second half leads readers into a foray of pieces Conroy has written on his second and well-known love, jazz. He trips into jam sessions with the Rolling Stones, waxes on his evolution as a pianist and profiles the great provocateurs in jazz. His exploration of Wynton Marsalis at 23 and later at 34 minutely reflects the arc of developments in the author's own life. Curiously, key moments in the essays resurface within each other as if in coda; the overlapping details makes reading them even more enjoyable.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The director of the famous Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, Conroy has contributed to such publications as Esquire, Harper's magazine, and the New York Times Magazine, as well as to books on writing, for many years. His miscellaneous essays are now collected in this interesting and well-done anthology. Conroy takes on such topics as learning to play pool, fatherhood, the value of now-disappearing small towns in instilling family values, the enthusiasms of jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, and, of course, the Writers' Workshop. Conroy is a jazz pianist as well as a teacher and writer, so it is natural that a number of essays deal with music and musicians. Previous works by this author include a well-received memoir, Stop-Time, and the novel Body & Soul, whose reception was more mixed. Academic and public collections, particularly those strong in modern American literature or music, will want to consider this title. Nancy P. Shires, East Carolina Univ. Lib., Greenville, NC
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Barking can be interpreted as an unleashed enthusiasm/eagerness...This superb blend of personal essays and journalistic articles certainly proves that... (The Chicago Sun-Times )

Uniformly well written, amiable, smart and, in this age of literary narcissism, something unusual: almost wholly self-absorbed, yet self-effacing. (The Washington Post )

Conroy combines improvisational oomph with meticulous control when writing about Wynton Marsalis and his own history at the pool table. (Entertainment Weekly )

Seemingly effortless, entirely transportive. (Kirkus Reviews )

Conroy delivers a running commentary on life in this collection of articles and essays, at once subtle and dazzling... (Publishers Weekly )

Interesting and well-done anthology (Library Journal )

For thirty years, Frank Conroy's commentaries on life, music, and writing have appeared regularly in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, and GQ. DOGS BARK, BUT THE CARAVAN ROLLS ON collects these pieces into an autobiography in journalistic snapshots. They evoke Conroy's southern childhood, his teen years in New York as a truant hanging out at pool halls and Harlem jazz clubs, his first glimmers of the power of language and the writing life in college, his romantic life, and his experiences as a teacher and as director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Here, too, are profiles of the musicians he has come to know -- and jammed with: Keith Jarrett, Wynton Marsalis, Peter Serkin, even the Rolling Stones. New essays fill out the collection from Conroy's wry retrospective viewpoint. DOGS BARK, BUT THE CARAVAN ROLLS ON is imbued with the honesty, humor, and insight that made his memoir STOP-TIME a classic.

FRANK CONROY is the director of the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. He is also an accomplished jazz pianist.

Some Observations Now In 1968 a pal of mine who worked for The New Yorker was sent to cover the Democratic convention in Chicago. During the infamous police riots he was struck two or three times by a cop with a nightstick, and when he managed to get back to his hotel he found himself pissing blood. He eventually recovered, wrote his piece and left out the attack on himself. "Michael," I asked my always elegantly dressed, highly polite friend, "how could you leave it out? You werent protesting. It shows the scope of the violence. Its important." He respectfully disagreed. "I wasnt sent to write about myself," he said, with a certain amount of hauteur. New Journalism was in the air back then--an approach in which the observer was taken to be as important, or more important, than the stuff observed (Tom Wolfe, for instance, writing about auto shows, well before taking on the more ambitious role of American Balzac). The New Yorker frowned on New Journalism. People took sides. I never did, whether from laziness or a reluctance to box myself in, I dont know. I dealt with each piece I wrote as seemed appropriate at the time. The closest I came to New Journalism was probably a long piece (endlessly long, in fact) about the late movie star Steve McQueen, written for what was then considered not the best but the hippest magazine around, Esquire. McQueen, whom I had never thought much of as an actor, turned out to be a nice guy. Unassuming, straightforward, easygoing if a touch wired, he was good company. We had fun riding 250 cc dirt bikes in the desert around Palm Springs, drinking beer, eating Mexican food at out-of-the-way joints and swimming in the pool behind his Palm Springs house, his getaway pad (his mansion was in Beverly Hills, of course). It was my first "big" magazine piece. Still in my twenties, I was thrilled by the whole experience. I left something out of my piece, though, something I knew the editors would probably like, and, so too, the readers. On my third visit to his house--"Come over for lunch," he said, "around eleven"--he surprised me. It was an ordinary suburban neighborhood, and I drove into the circle at precisely eleven a.m., parked the car and rang his front door bell. After a long time the door opened. McQueen, his entirely naked body wet and gleaming, peeked out at the street and then looked at me. "Come on back to the pool." Was he showing off? His body was flawless, front and back, and quite beautiful. One did not have to be gay (and neither of us was) to be moved by its perfection. Was he saying he had nothing to hide to a writer who would, he knew, be writing about him? Was he asserting his freedom to do whatever he wanted to do--the kid from the orphanage who grew up to be a movie star? Was it an expression of trust? Who knows? Perhaps he just didnt think it was that important. He lent me a pair of trunks, though, because he didnt know when his wife and kids would be back. Writing for